Joe Bennett: So Help Me Dog

Hazard Press

$19.95

This is Bennett's third collection of the weekly columns he writes for the Herald and other New Zealand newspapers, so it's hard to think of anything new to say that wasn't said for Just Walking the Dogs and Sleeping Dogs and Other Lies.

It's the same stuff: thoughtful, eclectic, funny, his jokes always nudged by profundity or delightful self-deprecation, or the deprecation of those pretentious souls whom we would most like to see brought down a peg or two.

As anyone knows who has tried, humour is a hard challenge for any writer.

That Bennett regularly draws a smile and sometimes a guffaw from his readers shows that he is a unique talent.